Attack-minded attitude could serve Selkirk well

Ralph Mellon

Selkirk FC are under no illusions about the trickiness of tomorrow’s (Saturday) trip to play champions East Kilbride in the Lowland League.

But they are confident of at least giving Billy Stark’s men a real challenge, if they can play to the best of their ability and recapture the confidence they showed in stages during their recent meeting in the Football Nation Qualifying Cup.

East Kilbride won 5-1 that day but, while the win was merited, the scoreline was perhaps not an accurate reflection of the standards of play.

Selkirk coach Ian Fergus felt his troops had been the better side early on and should have gone further ahead after taking the lead.

“We competed really well in the first half and should have had three at half time,” he said.

“In the second half, we wilted and they came on strongly and deserved to win.”

Fergus felt an on-form Selkirk would have a chance, however, and promised an attack-minded approach.

“East Kilbride will be confident – they have given us two really sound defeats already this season, scoreline-wise, so they will see it as a must-win for them to stay near the top.

“But it’s important we win as well, to keep us up at that end of the table.”

East Kilbride were defeated at home recently by Edinburgh University and, last Saturday, the drew 1-1 against East Stirlingshire. But, while they are beatable, Fergus knows it will be far from simple.

“There has to be a combination of a lot of things – you have to be on your top game on the day to play against them,” he said. “But I definitely think we will give them a good game.

“Weather permitting, the astroturf may suit us, and there are other factors that might help us.” T

Teams in the Lowland League with older, experienced ex-professional players would often take a merciless approach against young teams like Selkirk and “just go for it, said Fergus.

“But I am not going to change my approach and my style of play,” he added. “We want to be attacking, we want to be free flowing and try to let the young players express themselves, and we will just go out and do that again.

“Hopefully, we’ll get something we deserve from the game, for a change.”

While Fergus admitted he’d gladly take a point against the K-Park champions, he underlined Selkirk would be looking to win.

“A lot of teams go there to not get beaten heavily and try to defend, and just lose 3-1, or something like that, but we will not have that approach,” he said.